"Wire Frame Mattress"

You could be forgiven for thinking this was a Pitchfork page from 2004 that you happened upon via the Wayback Machine. In long-haired look, scruffy sound, and definitely-articled band name, the Wytches of Brighton, U.K. bear a surface resemblance to the sort of garage-rock revivalists lining up for NME cover shoots 10 years ago. But the sluggish yet swaggering “Wire-Framed Mattress” would indicate they’re not holding their breath for a phone call from "Top of the Pops" bookers.

Over a primordial blues-ooze that suggests Jack White if his music were actually as goth as his haircuts, frontman Kristian Bell gasps out a chorus line—“You sit there and laugh will my dignity collapses”—that sounds like the dying-breath epitaph of a young man who’s already given up on the world. But just when you expect them to channel all that anguish into a tortured guitar solo, the Wytches inject their misery with a little “Miserlou” and ride an ocean wave awash with oil spills and blackened birds. Surf’s down, dude.